Insight is always useful – and for technology areas attracting the most hype, enhancing our understanding is crucial. As you’ll know from reading our blog, one of the most revolutionary technologies around is the IoT, which is changing the way we live, tackle environmental problems and even enjoy sport. To understand more about the IoT, Gemalto worked with Telecoms.com to bring you the IoT Outlook 2016 Report, a survey of more than 900 business professionals on IoT and M2M technology. The results make for interesting reading…

As we make the transition from hype to reality, this year the survey questions tackle on-the-ground realities and challenges like operations and monetization. After all, deploying billions of connected devices is not a simple, one-off activity. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), Mobile Network Operators (MNO), Cloud Service Providers (CSP) and Independent Software Vendors (ISV) all need to transform their potential capabilities in this landscape to meaningful applications of technology that generate value for entire ecosystem.

This year the report reviews the overall market, before focusing on specific areas like IoT platforms, security, connectivity, industrial and consumer IoT.

My key takeaways for this year are as follows. M2M has been a torch-bearer for IoT as we know today, so it’s not surprising to see that a huge 45% of respondents feel that M2M and IoT mean the same thing. Clearly, there’s still room for the community to understand the landscape a bit further. This year, respondents were also asked to give feedback on consumer IoT. A large number of respondents (44%) believe that the biggest segment consumer IoT would impact is Health & Fitness. This is an important insight into consumer perception, as it shows that the wearable technology industry has the potential to catapult the market into the mainstream, as was the case with smart phones.

Gemalto today is operating in both the consumer and industrial IoT space, helping its customers connect, secure and monetize their IoT assets. You can discover more about that here. For now, enjoy the full IoT Outlook 2016 report by clicking the following link: